Dan (was) in Kazakhstan

The Journey of a naive wanderer. Recently updated with pictures!
Serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in Eastern Kazakhstan until June 2006, I taught English in a serene and antiquated village called Tarkhanka, snuggled among the hills in the Ulba River valley.

The comments on this blog are the writer's only and do not reflect the opinions of Peace Corps or the United States.

Saturday, February 25, 2006

i am tarkan, turkish prince of pop

See this guy? This is Tarkan, the man heralded by websites as the Turkish Prince of Pop. You may not know him, but he is everywhere in Central Asia.

After several months of pensive deliberations, much sould searching, and uncertainty, I finally have come to a realization: I got game...ostensibly.

It all began back in the summer, shortly after returning to Kazakhstan from vacation in the States. I was sitting in a local sports bar, talking to a couple of girls with whom I had initiated a converstaion and was sharing a round of Chivas whiskey, a rare and expensive treat in vodka-ridden Kazakhstan, when one of them mentioned, gazing into my blue eyes, that I looked like Tarkan. Somewhat thrown off at what seemed to me such a strange remark, I asked, "The singer?""Yeah.""The Turkish Singer.""Uh-huh.""The good-looking Turkish Singer?""Yeah." She laughed at my incredulity.But you see I had to verify, as you might understand looking at the picture of the gorgeous dark sultan of exotic song above. "Me?"

Needed to say, it was unexpected. I had never considered myself to be that good-looking, and of course she said I looked like Tarkan, which could just mean that I had features like him, not that I was his twin. But even so I wrote it off as a compliment uttered under the influence of mixed drinks. And I didn't really think of it again, until months later, when my new girlfriend told me one day, gazing deeply into my blue eyes, that I looked like Tarkan. Again I was taken aback. "What," she said. "No one's ever told you that before?" They had, which was why I was surprised. And I began again to queston the very basis of all my thinking throughout my insecure and troubled middle-school years.

I had to find out for sure. It was quite possible that my girlfriend could be stretching the truth to please me. So one day in class, I saw that one of my students had a copybook smattered with iconic pictures of Tarkan, and I put it to the jury of voracious teeny-boppers. The verdict: I did, particularly in the mouth and nose. So judge for yourself, but I am a believer, and ladies and gentlemen, if I look like that guy, anything in this world is possible.